Burdensome Bots

[moot]

so, as you would all know, this forum is prone to onslaughts of bots and their posts. of course, i take swift action by deactivating bot accounts and deleting such bot posts i find, but this time, i found 5 bots in a row that posted on the moothall. i think this is getting out of hand, so i am today bringing forth a fix i think would work to cast off the bots.

the idea

so while browsing the settings for this forum, i found out about a feature for phpBB that sets the default group for newly joined users to be "newly registered user", instead of our current default group, which permits users to post links, and have more freedoms to customise their accounts.

since our boards do not have this feature enabled by default, i think i should turn it on, as it would relieve some of the issues that bots bring forth, such as all their links to shady/scam sites all over their profile.

what this means for real new joiners

of course, this fix also comes at the cost of having actual new joiners not being able to have the same features as us well to do mooters, so here's how i plan to fix that. if you are a real user, just make one post, perhaps at the door, the board for introducing yourself. so pretty much, if you make a post proving yourself to be an actual person, and not some burdensome bot, then i will bestow you with the right rank, while the bots will be left behind!

---

so, what do you think? make a thread on the moothall if you'd like to discuss about this feature.